The present invention relates to a channel selection device used in a television receiver for receiving digital/analog broadcasts.
There has conventionally been available such a digital/analog broadcasting receiver that is capable of appropriately switching between digital broadcast and analog broadcast according to a channel number input from a channel selection device so that a desired channel of a broadcast can be received without any special key for analog/digital switch-over (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-164214). There is also available such a receiver that selects channels to thereby indicate a list of channel information obtained by analyzing a broadcasting signal in order to facilitate the channel selection (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 55-26760).
By the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) Standard of the North America Digital Broadcasting, for example, besides a prior art analog broadcast, there are originated a BS (Broadcasting Satellite) digital broadcast capable of high-picture-quality and multi-channel broadcasting and a digital broadcast represented by the CS (Communications Satellite) digital broadcast, each of which digital broadcasts is originated in a carrier wave in a predetermined frequency band through a physical channel different from that for analog broadcast, thus generally containing many contents. Other digital broadcasts originated from the same broadcasting station or the same system of broadcasting station as the prior art analog broadcasting station are administered so that the station can be selected and displayed through a virtual channel assigned the same channel numbers as the prior art analog broadcasting channel numbers in order to facilitate the operations of the users accustomed to these prior art channel numbers.
The digital broadcasting virtual channels comprise one main channel and sub-channels which are headed by the main channel number to originate one or a plurality of contents, which channels are given in a hierarchy. The configuration of the sub-channels changes with a broadcasting time band, one of which is exemplified in FIG. 5 which shows a configuration of the sub-channels in a time band (8:00 PM to 12:00 PM) that has a main channel “4”.
In FIG. 5, in broadcasting, sub-channels of Nos. 0 to 4 are selected for 8:00 to 9:00 PM, sub-channels of Nos. 0 and 1 are selected for 9:00 to 10:00 PM, sub-channels of Nos. 0 to 4 are selected for 10:00 to 11:00 PM, and sub-channels of Nos. 0 to 3 are selected for 11:00 to 12:00 PM. Among these, the sub-channel of No. 0 (physical channel number of 4-0) involves analog broadcast according to the NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) Standard, while the sub-channels of Nos. 1 to 4 (virtual channels Nos. 4-1 through 4-4) involve digital broadcast. Also, a TV program broadcast through the channel “4-0” is a prior art analog-broadcast one, SD (Standard Definition) programs broadcast through the channels “4-1” through “4-4” are digital broadcast standard-picture-quality one, and an HD (High Definition) program broadcast through the channel “4-1” is a digital broadcast high-picture-quality one.
There is such a prior art digital/analog broadcasting receiver's channel selection device that decodes and analyzes a broadcasting signal to acquire a VCT (Virtual Channel Table) containing channel information and hold a channel map storing this table, so that when the user changes or selects a channel, based on this channel map, an EPG (Electric Program Guide) functioning as an interface is used to display a channel selection screen to thereby operate the key (e., UP key/DOWN key) at the body's operation panel or a remote-control panel, thus enabling him to change or select the channel.
Although this system eliminates a troublesome operation of inputting a channel number, when, as described above, the main channel contains a plurality of sub-channels in a hierarchical construction, the above-mentioned UP key and the DOWN key cannot distribute the main channels and the sub-channels conceptually, so that in case of changing into next main channel, all the sub-channels contained therein must be passed through, thus still being troublesome in operation.